


Occupational Hazards

by blink_fahrenheit



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Backstory, Blood, Bombs, Gen, Hurt MacGyver, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Jack, brace yourselves friends part two is gonna hurt, but that will change - Freeform, here comes that whump i promised, jack and mac in the army, so much jack angst, the first chapter is light and fluffy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9409667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blink_fahrenheit/pseuds/blink_fahrenheit
Summary: Everybody formed relationships when they shipped out. The bond between soldiers was inevitable and nearly religious in the loyalty it evoked. But Mac was different. In the span of two years Jack had let Angus MacGyver take up residence in a section of his heart that he hadn’t even known was up for grabs. He loved that little guy. Loved him like a brother.Problem was, Mac didn’t use his big brain for college or something sane. Mac defused bombs all day in the middle of Afghanistan.It was bound to go wrong at least once.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is part one. The whump comes in part two, which will be up within the week.
> 
> I'm a little obsessed with Mac and Jack's implied backstory- when you look up what exactly Delta Force and Explosive Ordinance Disposal guys do together in the field, it is really friggin intense.  
> I've also been encountering a bit of a tone problem as I try to write for this fandom- because the show is a pretty upbeat, fun spy series with science hijinks, and I really prefer to write just straight up physical and emotional torture. My solution is that I'm probably gonna focus on their military years whenever I write these two. So if you like melodramatic, angst-ridden backstory, I'm your guy.  
> Except this chapter right here- this chapter's mostly fluff. Enjoy.

Sometimes Jack found it helpful to reflect back, and try and remember how exactly the fucked up past had led to the fucked up present.

Round about two years back, he’d been shipped out to Afghanistan for reasons that he was sure made sense to someone with a higher pay grade. They called it counterterrorism; from what Jack could see they’d basically hauled away from the most intense training of his life to wander around, get a miserable fucking sunburn, and roll the dice to see if today was the day he blew up by stepping on a landmine. In the pursuit of not blowing up by stepping on a landmine, they’d paired his Delta Force unit with a team of EODs. Every morning, his guys would go to the bomb tech’s little setup, which looked an awful lot like a garage, pick up whoever was on tap for active search and disposal that day, and go looking for things that went boom. That little garage setup was where he’d met Mac.

Actually that was where he’d met about a dozen of the smartest and ballsiest people on earth, who had all actively decided that what they really wanted to do with their time was get up close and personal with little packets of nails and screws rigged up to go through people’s bodies like tissue paper. But Mac stood out a little. Probably because every time their radio broke, another one of the techs would yell, _“Angus, your baby’s choking again!”,_ and a kid that looked like a Scandinavian male model would barrel over with a roll of tinfoil and a jar of peanut butter yelling, _“Time me!”_ That kind of thing left an impression. That and the fact that Mac was out with Jack’s unit more than anyone else.

See, technically, Explosive Ordinance Disposal techs had caps on how often they were allowed to go out and get touchy with the bombs. They had shifts and work schedules just like people with normal jobs. Jack never found out exactly how Mac managed to wiggle around that, but the kid went out bomb-touching every goddamn day. Jack got used to him, more than any of the other techs who followed non suicidal work schedules. More than half the guys in his unit, truth be told. The two of them just got along. Mac understood why it was important to watch every single one of the _Die Hard_ movies twice a year at minimum. He felt strongly about what they were doing out in the middle of the fucking desert without delving too far into the macho-patriotism bullshit. And he could do that thing - the MacGyver thing, where he took his Swiss Army knife and the contents of his buddy’s pocket and built almost literally anything, like the entire world was made of Lego playsets and Mac had the all instructions memorized. Jack liked him. That was his first mistake.

Mac had been twenty years old when they met. That was two years ago now, and in those two years it had become clear that Jack was completely screwed. He had already cleared forty a while back, and he didn’t have kids of his own (but God in heaven he missed Riley sometimes), and he and Mac got along so well and Mac was so smart and brave and promising- he couldn’t help it. Jack got attached. Not just regular comrade-in-arms type attached, Jack got momma-duck attached. Ask-your-mom-if-you-can-keep-him attached. Worry-about-how-much-he’s-eating attached. For fuck’s sake, Jack brought Mac home with him during leave because the kid didn’t talk to his dad. He was in too deep and he knew it.

Everybody formed relationships when they shipped out. The bond between soldiers was inevitable and nearly religious in the loyalty it evoked. But Mac was different. In the span of two years Jack had let Angus MacGyver take up residence in a section of his heart that he hadn’t even known was up for grabs. He loved that little guy. Loved him like a brother.

Problem was, Mac didn’t use his big brain for college or something sane. Mac defused bombs all day in the middle of Afghanistan.

It was bound to go wrong at least once.

* * *

Jack started the day like he usually did; driving over to the EODs’ home base with three guys from his unit, to pick up the techs on rotation for the day. (And Mac, of course. He knew before he got there that he would be picking up Mac.)

Diaz, their unit commander, was driving. And playing some shitty old music.

“Come on, man,” Jack whined from his position in the shotgun seat of their Hum-V. “I’m not saying you gotta play MY music, but this is cruel and unusual. How ‘bout the reggaeton stuff you had on the other day, what was wrong with that?”

“This is a classic,” Diaz said with a perfectly straight face. The severe trim of his goatee gave his mouth a deceptively serious look, betrayed by the slight wrinkling in the light brown skin around his eyes. He was trying not to laugh.

“It can’t be a classic if we’ve never heard of it,” Jack protested.

“Right. Let’s take a vote,” Diaz said. “You two in back- you ever heard of Alberto Vázquez?”

“Of course, sir,” Fitzgerald replied blandly. The sleep in the corners of his eyes suggested that he didn’t really know or care what they were talking about, but he knew better than to side against Diaz.

Montoya, for all that she looked like one of the smaller and less threatening members of their group, was ballsier. Jack secretly liked her more than almost anybody else he was stationed with. “He’s Dad music, sir. Doesn’t make him a classic,” she asserted. Then she glanced out the window, and Jack saw genuinely fond smile spread over her face. “Your puppy’s already waiting, Dalton.”

Jack knew he should get defensive or something, but he had a hard time summoning anything but affection when he turned back around to look out his passenger side window. The kid was indeed already outside waiting for the truck, his long, conspicuously non-regulation hair held back by a bandana. He smiled when he saw them coming, shooting a special cocky grin at Jack.

“Yup,” Jack agreed with a light laugh. “There he is. Probably forgot to feed him, poor mutt, hope he hasn’t been standing out there all night.”

Diaz finally cracked up a little and pulled over next to where Mac stood, dust billowing around their wheels. “If anybody’s the poor mutt in this situation it’s definitely you, Dalton.”

Jack chose not to dignify that with a response and instead turned his attention back to Mac’s grin. That was an ‘I-know-something-you-don’t-know’ grin if he’d ever seen one. Now granted, MacGyver could probably fill a couple books with things he knew that other people didn’t, but he looked especially pleased with himself this time.

"What are you smiling about, Goldilocks?” Jack drawled as he emerged from their Hum-V. The dry, dusty sand crunched under his boots. “Didjou forget we’re in a warzone again?”

“Oh shit, is this not summer camp?” Mac asked, eyes wide in mock surprise. Their light blue stood out even more against the deep tan he’d developed. “Is that why there’s no arts and crafts tent?”

“Hell are you complaining about, whole goddamn world is your arts and crafts tent,” Jack snorted. He headed into the EOD base, which still looked an awful lot like a garage full of boxes, and grabbed the box with Mac’s bomb suit to load into the truck. “Who’ve we got with us today?”

“Juarez, Shelby and Nichols,” Mac rattled off. “They’re still in back.”

“Mhmm,” Jack said, letting Diaz and Fitzgerald carry the other bomb suits into the truck. He stepped with Mac inside, into the shade. “And what, pray tell, are they doing in back?”

Mac’s grin got wider. “Do you wanna see?”

“Uh-uh, no you don’t, let us take bets first,” Montoya demanded loudly. Mac and Jack looked over to see Montoya standing with her hands on her hips, squinting intently at Mac, black bangs just brushing her eyes. She strutted up to Mac’s side, grabbed one of his hands, and inspected it for evidence. “No motor oil, no gun powder,” she reflected.  “I vote flatscreen TV.”

“Nope,” said Fitzgerald, coming back inside from loading the truck. “If it’s anything it’s a coffee machine. You can’t get a good cup of coffee out here.”

Mac kept his poker face on and just shook his head at their guesses, but Jack was pretty good at reading him at this point. Whatever it was, it was impressive this time.

“Hot tub,” Jack said firmly. “I’ve got a dollar on hot tub.” He glanced over at Diaz, still out by the car. “You betting, boss?”

“Gambling’s not one of my vices,” Diaz shot back. “Just get it over with, we’ve got shit to do.”

Mac bobbed his head, a little sheepishly. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “We’ll be right back.” He turned to lead them through a narrow alley through the boxes cluttering the little shack and beckoned. “Come on, won’t take a minute.” Jack, Montoya and Fitzgerald followed obligingly.

The back of EOD home base was much less cramped, nominally because this was where they practiced, but realistically because this was where Mac liked to do his MacGyver thing, and the MacGyver thing took space. The walls were crowded with DIY vacuum cleaners, a soda fountain, a radio that was more than half coat hangers at this point, and something covered in blinking lights that Jack didn’t dare ask about. In the middle of the room, though, stood and impressively large hunk of metal surrounded by eight of Mac’s fellow techs- stone cold, brilliant badasses, every one of them, currently clustered around the new contraption and giggling like fifth graders at recess. Mac looked on with almost paternal pride.

“Oh, boy, you’ve outdone yourself, haven’t you?” Jack whistled low, coming to stand next to him. “You gonna tell us what the hell this is?”

One of the techs- Nicole Shelby was her name, she was coming out with them today- turned around the face the newcomers with a beaming smile, and held out something fluffy to them. “You have got to try this,” she declared.

“Is that-?” Montoya squinted in disbelief, emerging into the back room. “Is that _cotton candy?_ ” She looked at Mac incredulously. “Did you seriously make a _cotton candy_ machine in an active warzone?”

MacGyver was nodding, though he had the good grace to look a little abashed. “We had all the ingredients in our rations if I could distill them out, and the machine’s not that hard to rig up if you’ve got a power source, so…”

“Gimme,” Montoya demanded, holding out her hand to Shelby. “I need to see for myself.”

Shelby obligingly passed over the handful of fluff, and Montoya tasted it carefully. Her eyes widened in shock. “It’s actually _good_. Fuck. We’re coming back here after, right?”

Jack laughed. “We’ll promise Diaz some to make him bring us back here. Now come on, nerd squad. We got wires to cut and all that.”

The three techs on duty (and Mac, literally always Mac) shifted demeanor immediately and split apart from the group, buzzing around their common area and grabbing what they needed. They were ready to head out in twenty seconds flat.

Jack caught Mac by the arm before they climbed into the truck. “Listen buddy,” he said seriously. “I know it’s useless to ask at this point, but I gotta do it for the sake of tradition- you sure you wanna come out this time? No shame in deciding to follow the actual schedule once in a while, you know. Maybe make some more cotton candy instead of playing operation with C4?”

Mac shook his head and rolled his eyes a little, but the gesture was fond. The sun beat down on the two of them like a physical force, but it was a familiar heat, as familiar as this very exchange that they’d had nearly every morning for god knew how long. “I’m sure about this, Jack,” Mac said. “Can’t keep me away from the fun stuff.”

Jack would try to remember this exchange later. Try to remember that Mac knew was he was doing, knew the risks, and had decided over and over that it was worth it.

It didn’t help.

“Ah,” Jack sighed, releasing the kid’s arm to clap him once, firmly, on the back. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.” And Mac climbed in the truck, like he did every single time, and Jack’s heart did the stupid little squirmy thing, like it did every single time.

_Momma-duck attached._

God, he was so screwed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Right. So. Now that we've established how crushed Jack would be if anything happened to Mac, let's hurt Mac very, very badly. That sounds fun, right?
> 
> (I'm going to hell.)


End file.
